


In Between

by Viridian5



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Canon - Manga, Confessions, Dark Past, Hurt/Comfort, Living Together, M/M, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 04:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11119791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: Hakkai keeps holding himself back.





	In Between

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for “Be There” and “Burial -- Gojyo & Hakkai’s chapter.” Thanks to Akira 17 for the beta.

A loud moan woke Hakkai. As he oriented himself in the near darkness of the bedroom, he thought it might have come from the living room. 

Gojyo? He might need help. Or he might be having an intimate moment with some girl or himself, while Hakkai continually fought his unwholesome sexual attraction to his handsome roommate, who didn’t need someone spying on him in his own home. Hakkai already spent too much time imagining various scenarios _without_ the assistance of watching a similar one in real life. 

But the next moan still pulled at him. Gojyo might be seriously hurt. Although Gojyo could defend himself well, he could still be outnumbered and overwhelmed, and he spent a lot of time in the company of unsavory characters. If Hakkai found out in the morning that Gojyo had legitimately needed help but he hadn’t bothered to leave his bed out of prudery, squeamishness, and fear of the beast he now knew lived inside him to provide it, he’d hate himself. Rightfully so. 

With the night gradually lightening into morning, Hakkai could make out the outlines of things around him as he made it to the living room. He could see Gojyo crumpled on the couch, face down, lying partially on his side. “No, please,” Gojyo begged in a soft, thick, heartbroken voice. “No, _Mom_....” It slashed at Hakkai’s heart.

Hakkai had long surmised from some of Gojyo’s mannerisms and ways of thought that someone had abused him badly in the past and wondered if this dream tied into it. No matter, this seemed painful and Gojyo shouldn’t have to continue suffering through it. 

“Gojyo, wake up. Gojyo, you’re dreaming! Gojyo, wake up! Gojyo!”

It didn’t work. When Hakkai crouched down and set his hand on Gojyo’s hot, bare shoulder, Gojyo _cringed_ under his touch, appalling Hakkai and changing his mind on trying to shake Gojyo awake. 

Gojyo sobbed and did a kind of whole body shudder then went still, guarded, somewhat awake and possibly trying to get some idea of where he was and what was going on before giving himself away. If Hakkai hadn’t been touching him, it might have fooled him. 

“Gojyo,” Hakkai said softly. 

Gojyo groaned then replied, “Hi. Did I wake you up? Hope not.” He set his hand over Hakkai’s on top of his shoulder, which sent an inordinate thrill through Hakkai’s body. 

“No.”

“Liar. I’m sitting up now.” He did so, but Hakkai left his hand on his shoulder under Gojyo’s. “My head is killing me. Drank more than I should’ve or wanted to, but an old friend came back for a visit and it’s not buddies to let him drink alone.” 

“Banri?” Hakkai would want to know if that wretched reprobate returned to town, if only to know where to find and punish him.

“Room went icy there for a moment. Nah, not Banri. Another guy. You probably wouldn’t approve of him either, though he’s not so bad.”

“You know too many shady characters.”

“‘Led astray by shady people’ might be the title of my life.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

As the room lightened further, Hakkai could better see Gojyo’s facial expressions, but Gojyo, seemingly sensing that, let his hair hang into his face more. When Gojyo didn’t reply to Hakkai’s last sentence, Hakkai said, “You don’t have to be embarrassed over a nightmare. Everyone has them.” Hakkai certainly did.

“Just hate you seeing me being pathetic.”

“Hardly pathetic. Besides, have you forgotten that when we first met you saw _me_ facedown in the mud and rain with my intestines hanging out?”

“I’m never forgetting that, especially since I had to stuff them back in to move you. A guy doesn’t forget being wrist-deep in someone’s guts.” 

“I’m appreciative. Your voice sounds rough. Do you want something to drink? Your hangover won’t be as painful if you’re hydrated.”

“Yeah, thanks, but I can get it for myself. Go back to bed.”

Pride, a desire not to be a burden, or some combination of both? “It’s no trouble. Don’t get up. Besides, this way I know it won’t just be more alcohol.” 

Gojyo laughed and asked, “Where’s the trust?”

“I _know_ you.”

“Hair of the dog totally works.”

“I would argue against that, but in any case you’re not getting any now. I’m not accepting any argument.”

“Fine.”

He had to remove his hand from Gojyo’s shoulder to go and shivered as Gojyo’s hand slid off his. When he returned, blue light passed through the thin living room curtains, washing everything in blue, allowing shades of colors to appear--dark, medium, or light--but not yet the actual color of things, with Gojyo’s hair looking only barely red. Morning twilight, the time between night and day. In a way, Hakkai lived in a kind of twilight himself, no longer Gonou but not yet Hakkai. 

Hakkai handed Gojyo the glass, sat across from him, and tried not to look at his exposed collarbones or think about nipping at them, possibly drawing blood, one of the tamer of his recent fantasies. He’d felt passion before, for his sister, but his desire for Gojyo kept expressing itself, worryingly, in more violent, possessive, and forceful terms and he didn’t know why. Did it come from becoming a mass murderer or a youkai? Had the potential been within him all along, just like the murdering? 

But he couldn’t do that to Gojyo, because it wasn’t right and because Gojyo might _let_ him. 

“I imagine that you’re never awake at this time of day,” Hakkai said to distract himself from that and the movements of Gojyo’s neck as he drank.

“Your imagining would be wrong, because I have. It might’ve been because I hadn’t gone to bed yet, but it still counts. For some people sunrise is at the _end_ of the day, and there’s nothin’ actually wrong with that. It’s kinda nice.”

“Are you expecting me to disapprove?” Hakkai did. 

“Frankly, yeah.”

“That usually doesn’t bother you.”

“It means more to me than you think. _Not_ that I’m gonna stop living my life, but you know.”

Gojyo seemed diminished, where usually he took up so much space with his warmth, friendliness, and swagger, though Hakkai had long guessed that at least some of that swagger was hollow and self-protective. Hakkai had seen him hungover before but seldom to this effect, so it had to be the nightmare. 

Hakkai wanted to ask about it but knew he shouldn’t. Gojyo had never pried into Gonou’s business during his long recovery, which had been a relief. (Gonou had ended up telling him a lot anyway, a few final confessions, thinking it wouldn’t matter since he’d be dead soon anyway. Few things in the final months of Gonou’s life had gone as he’d planned, a streak Hakkai hoped to end.) 

Then again, he and Gojyo had recently decided to talk more and get to know one another better, a process interrupted almost as soon as it started by that degenerate Banri. “Gojyo, I want to ask you something, and if it’s too intrusive you don’t have to answer.”

“ _This_ should be good. It’s about the nightmare, right?”

“Yes.”

“Of course.” Gojyo hunched more. “Even if I wanted to talk about what’s behind my nightmare, it’s such a huge, nasty knot of related, fucked up disasters that it’d take me a long time to get through it all and afterward I’d need to drink myself into a stupor to knock me out and get it off my mind for a while. You know how it is. I get that you’re trying to help me, but that’s not much good if it makes me feel even worse.”

“You don’t have to tell me everything-- but you’re telling me there’s no way to avoid that, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. I try to set the past aside and look at the positives of the present, you know? Nobody’s beating the shit out of me and I’m not living on the streets, I have a roof over my head and food to eat, these days I almost never have anyone spitting at me for being a....” Gojyo’s hand clenched hard around the glass, which made an alarming creaking sound. 

Worried and appalled, Hakkai got up and took it from him before it shattered, setting it on the end table (and wishing for a coaster), then sat on the couch close to him. Gojyo tended to be very tactile, so Hakkai put his arm around him to pull him in closer, hoping it didn’t feel as awkward to Gojyo as it did to him. It must not have, because Gojyo leaned into Hakkai, set his head against Hakkai’s shoulder, and exhaled, letting some of his tension bleed out. 

“You don’t have to tell me everything,” Hakkai said, “you don’t have to tell me anything.” Gojyo had already managed to tell him a lot and confirm a few of his suspicions. 

“It’s fuckin’ pathetic,” Gojyo replied softly. “And your hands are _cold_ , dude.”

Hakkai laughed a little, willing to let Gojyo collect himself more and deflect a bit. “We can’t all be furnaces like you. Perhaps you can keep me warm.” 

Gojyo shifted a little in a way that suggested that something Hakkai had just said might have struck some kind of chord. “Sure.”

Holding Gojyo like this made him feel so warm and weirdly comforted that he started to get very drowsy, but he couldn’t leave him like this to go to bed. Although Gojyo didn’t seem to mind Hakkai leaning into _him_ , he said, “You don’t have to keep sticking around like this tonight, Hakkai. ’M fine now.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Not long after that, he felt Gojyo drifting off to sleep and followed him. 

  


* * *

Hakkai awoke alone on the couch, a blanket over him and a pillow under his head, morning sunlight streaming warm on his back. Worried, finding it hard to believe that Gojyo had woken before him, he went looking for his roommate and found him lying asleep in bed sprawled atop the covers, beautiful and far too tempting, his torso bare, his blue pajama bottoms riding low on his hips, and his damp red hair vibrant against the white of the pillowcase as the sunlight made the linen seem to glow and sections of Gojyo’s hair seem to blaze. How had all of this come to pass? 

Hakkai gently and softly sat on the edge of the bed, barely making the mattress move or creak. Last night Gojyo had smelled strongly of alcohol and like an ashtray full of cigarettes, to the point of stinking, but now just of lime-scented soap. He wanted to touch him but knew he shouldn’t.

“Mmm, Hakkai? You gonna lie down with me or what?” Gojyo asked.

“You have your face buried in a pillow and your back to me, so how did you know it was me?”

“It was either you or some kinky stranger who broke into my home. If somebody’s gonna murder me, I doubt he’d be so polite while sitting down on the mattress first.” 

“You left me alone on the couch.”

Gojyo turned over to face him. “I woke up with a headache and feeling grungy, while you were out cold and looked like you needed the sleep. I took a shower and then took advantage of the empty bed. Was I supposed to pick you up and bridal carry you to the bedroom and hope it didn’t wake you up? Lemme know for the future. Besides, you were gonna get a bad crick in your neck if we kept sleeping like that. And... ah....” Gojyo seemed somewhat embarrassed. “And I was feeling a bit affectionate and didn’t wanna inflict that on you when you weren’t awake to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or anything.”

Hakkai wondered if he should feel hopeful. “Affectionate? How so?”

“Only as far as you’re willing to take it. I didn’t want you to think it was only happening because I was drunk, hungover, or grateful either. If you’re not feeling it, it’s okay and this never happened. You’ve been standoffish on and off lately....” Aside from a bit hurt, he sounded somewhat... shy, surprisingly so. 

Gojyo had put himself out there and shown vulnerability, so Hakkai could do no less. “I’m... feeling it too. I just worried about my darker side hurting you and you... letting it.”

Gojyo’s look at Hakkai said that he realized why Hakkai might think that about him and that he wasn’t terribly happy about the accuracy of Hakkai’s guesses. “I don’t have to tell you about my past, huh?”

“I hope that sometime you’ll want to, and I want to help where I can. I really do feel... affectionate and want to show it in healthy ways.”

“We wouldn’t know ‘healthy’ if it bit us on the ass.”

Hakkai smiled. “Mine or yours?”

Gojyo grabbed his wrist, pulling him down to lie close beside him, and Hakkai let him. Lying on his side facing Hakkai, hand still on Hakkai’s wrist, Gojyo asked, “How far are you willing to take ‘affectionate’?”

Lying similarly, Hakkai just saw Gojyo and white linen, both partially illuminated and warmed by the sun. “How far are you? _You’re_ the town’s womanizer.”

“Not as much lately. It’s different when I know there’s someone at home waiting for me.” 

Oh. Should he feel so smug as well as warmed to hear that?

“I’m game for a lot, Hakkai. You’re the first and last guy I’m taking to my bed, remember? Though since you’ve shown up you’ve been spending a lot more time in it than I have.”

Hakkai had no regrets about that. “So your overtures are just about you getting to spend time in the bed again?”

“ _Hakkai_. No.”

“I still worry about my darker side.”

“For real or is that an excuse?”

Angry at being doubted and discounted like that, Hakkai asked, “Do you want me to go into detail about some of my worst fantasies to you?”

“No, but lots of people have fucked up fantasies they never actually do and you’re one of the most strong-willed people I know. If you really don’t want to hurt me, then don’t.”  
  
“Just don’t?”  
  
“If you don’t wanna abuse me, just don’t.”  
  
“Why would you want to take that chance?”   
  
“If I hadn’t taken a big chance one night, you’d be dead and I never would’ve gotten to know you, which would be a shame.”

The critically injured man Gojyo had picked up and taken home that night had recently killed over a thousand youkai and about fifty humans. “How can you be so reckless?”

“Life’s short, and I wanna live it. People have told me ‘no’ all my life, and if I’d just accepted that from people or life I never would’ve gotten anywhere.” 

“What if I told you ‘no’? About this.”

“I’d deal with it. Depending on the reason for your ‘no,’ I’d either see if I can get you to say ‘yes’ eventually or I’d back off. I’m not gonna force you into anything. But I hope you say ‘yes.’”

“How can you trust me so much? I don’t even trust myself.” Didn’t trust himself as himself and certainly didn’t trust himself as a youkai, though he might struggle in articulating that last one to Gojyo, who was half youkai, had grown up with them, and recently watched the youkai version of Hakkai rescue him. Gojyo didn’t know how Hakkai strained to control himself.

“It sounds like you’re not trusting yourself enough for the both of us.”

“I worry about you.”

Gojyo _smiled_. Had it been so rare for anyone to worry about him? “You’re the kind of trouble I wanna get into.” Then he winced at himself. “That came out cheesier than I thought it would.”

“I don’t mind it. Besides, I’m used to it by now.”

“Oi. That kind of talk counts as abuse.”

Hakkai didn’t know if he should laugh or be appalled and settled on some mixture of both. 

 

### End


End file.
